Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Sony Buys Grouper For $65M

Culver City-based Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired Sausalito, California-based Grouper, a user-generated video site. Sony said very early this morning that it will pay $65M for Grouper. Grouper will retain its current management, and work closely with a team at Sony Pictures. The deal is the first major acquisition of a user-generated video site. Sony said that the acquisition is part of a strategic initiative of making entertainment accessible to consumers wherever, whenever, and however they want, and that Sony has no immediate plans to make any changes to the site. However, Sony did say that there was a potential for the development of ad-supproted and premium content businesses based on the Grouper platform.

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